9 Twitter Best Practices For Better Tweet Copy, Images, and Videos (With Examples)

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9 Twitter Best Practices For Better Tweet Copy, Images, and Videos (With Examples)

9 Twitter Best Practices For Better Tweet Copy, Images, and Videos (With Examples)

Do you want to improve the performance of your tweets on Twitter?

Whether your focus is on tweet copy, images, or video, in this blog post I will share 15 simple Twitter-backed tips to fine-tune your output.

Tweet Copy Best Practices

Keep your tweet concise and to the point

Twitter moves fast and you don’t have much space to get your point across, so really think about the construct of your sentences. When you’ve written a tweet, look over it and ask yourself if you can re-write it in a simpler way, or with less waffle.

Hello, World!

In this example, IKEA shows you don’t have to use anywhere near the 240 characters available to get your point across.

Include a call-to-action (CTA)

Most brands on Twitter will be there as a way to get their customers to take action in some way - whether that be to visit a website, watch a video, syphon customer service queries to an appropriate channel, etc.

And so, if you want someone to do something… ask them with a call-to-action, an essential element of a tweet whose purpose is to drive action.

In this example from Holland & Barrett, “Find out why here” and a pointing emoji is used to coax readers into clicking through to its website, proving that sometimes that a CTA doesn’t always need to use words.

Use conversational text

Human interactions are at the core of the Twitter experience, so it can really benefit your business if your “voice” on Twitter is conversational, human, and reflects the interactions that your customers might have.

Use % discount instead of a dollar amount

This one is a psychological thing more than anything. Twitter research has found that people click more on discounts that express the offer as a percentage off, rather than a dollar amount. 25% off sounds more than $5 off for example, doesn’t it?

Create a sense of urgency with offers

This one is another old trick from the psychology of sales. When you’re using Twitter to promote an offer, you want to generate a sense of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) amongst your audience. If they see that the offer is only available for a limited time, they are more likely to click (and hopefully make a purchase).

Limit your hashtags

Using hashtags in your tweets is essential for discovery on the site, but too many can muddle your message when seen by your followers, and hurt your tweet’s effectiveness overall. Keep the number of tweet you use to just one or two, and place them in a way that doesn’t upset the flow of your copy.


Tweet Images Best Practices

Use minimal text

When you post images on Twitter for any purpose, let the picture do the talking. Some text is okay if it supports your message, but lots of text is harder to read on mobile screens. Use images that have a central focus, and save your text for the tweet copy to support it.

Catch the eye

WIth so much media in the feeds of Twitter users, your images have to work hard to be thumb-stopping. Some of the ways that you can do this include using bright colours, a human element (pictures of faces naturally tend to attract people more than inanimate objects), or adding in a sense of movement to catch the eye - GIFS can work well for this.

Twitter Video Best Practices

Short and Snappy

Twitter recommends posting videos that are 15 seconds or less. Short-form video like this has exploded in recent years - just long enough to communicate a full message, but not too long that users won’t watch until the end.

Open with your product

If you’re using a video to sell a product or service on Twitter, you want to let the audience know straight away! Don’t assume that your fans will watch right until the end of the video to see what it’s all about, because a lot of them won’t.

So yes, there’s no time or need to be clever with social media product advertising - show it front and centre, and include branding throughout (with a logo or recognisable brand colours).

Add captions

Twitter videos in the news feed automatically play with sound off (until the user taps to unmute), so always add captions to your videos to make communicating your message clear. Adding captions also ensures your message is “heard” loud and clear by people in environments where they can’t watch with the sound on, and also, of course, is the right thing to do for accessibility reasons.

Twitter Best Practices Conclusion

So there you have it! 9 quick and easy tips to vastly improve the chances of your tweets performing well, whether they be text, images, or videos. What is your best strategy for improving the engagement your tweets receive? Let me know in the comments below!

Andrew Macarthy is a social media consultant and the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips.

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